Henry David Thoreau Quotes About Reality

• When we are unhurried and wise, we perceive that only great and worthy things have any permanent and absolute existence, that petty fears and petty pleasures are but the shadow of the reality.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wise, Fear, Reality

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.69, Xist Publishing

• I have a great deal of company in my house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Good Morning, Reality, House

  "Walden, Or, Life in the Woods".

• When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Respect, Reality, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.361, Penguin

• Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downwards through the mud and slush of opinion and tradition, and pride and prejudice, appearance and delusion, through the alluvium which covers the globe, through poetry and philosophy and religion, through church and state, through Paris and London, through New York and Boston and Concord, till we come to a hard bottom that rocks in place which we can call reality and say, "This is and no mistake.

  Henry David Thoreau

  New York, Philosophy, Mistake

• We are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. We can never have enough of nature.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Reality, Sublime, Atheism

• If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away. It is not important that he should mature as soon as an apple-tree or oak. Shall he turn his spring into summer? If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Summer, Spring

  Walden ch. 18 (1854). Frequently quoted as "marches to the tune of a different drummer."

• Must be out-of-doors enough to get experience of wholesome reality, as a ballast to thought and sentiment. Health requires this relaxation, this aimless life.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Time, Health

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.100, Courier Corporation

• Be it life or death, we crave only reality.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Reality, Life Or Death, Crave

  Henry David Thoreau (1995). “Walden, Or, Life in the Woods”, p.64, Courier Corporation

• If the condition of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute? We will not be shipwrecked on a vain reality.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Reality, Vain, Made

  Henry David Thoreau, Jeffrey S. Cramer (2007). “I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau”, p.79, Yale University Press

• Have no mean hours, but be grateful for every hour, and accept what it brings. The reality will make any sincere record respectable.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Grateful, Mean, Reality

  Henry David Thoreau (1894). “Summer.-v.7. Autumn”

• The frontiers are not east or west, north or south; but wherever a man fronts a fact, though that fact be a neighbor, there is anunsettled wilderness between him and Canada, between him and the setting sun, or, farther still, between him and it. Let him build himself a log house with the bark on where he is, fronting IT, and wage there an Old French war for seven or seventy years, with Indians and Rangers, or whatever else may come between him and the reality, and save his scalp if he can.

  Henry David Thoreau

  War, Reality, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “A Week On The Concord And Merrimack Rivers (Annotated Edition)”, p.257, Jazzybee Verlag

• Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous. If men would steadily observe realities only, and not allow themselves to be deluded, life ... would be like a fairy tale and the Arabian Nights' Entertainments.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Night, Reality, Men

  Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Walden”, p.62, Cosimo, Inc.

• The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist. We soon forget them. They are the highest reality.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Knowledge, Reality

  Henry David Thoreau (2014). “Citizen Thoreau: Walden, Civil Disobedience, Life Without Principle, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown”, p.132, Graphic Arts Books

• You speak of poverty and dependence. Who are poor and dependent? Who are rich and independent? When was it that men agreed to respect the appearance and not the reality?

  Henry David Thoreau

  Truth, Independent, Reality

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.361, Penguin

• If you stand right fronting and face to face to a fact, you will see the sun glimmer on both its surfaces, as if it were a cimeter, and feel its sweet edge dividing you through the heart and marrow, and so you will happily conclude your mortal career. Be it life or death, we crave only reality. If we are really dying, let us hear the rattle in our throats and feel cold in the extremities; if we are alive, let us go about our business.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Life, Sweet, Heart

  Henry David Thoreau (2016). “Walden”, p.70, Xist Publishing

• The customs of some savage nations might, perchance, be profitably imitated by us, for they at least go through the semblance of casting their slough annually; they have the idea of the thing, whether they have the reality or not.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Reality, Ideas, Savages

  Henry David Thoreau (2012). “The Portable Thoreau”, p.189, Penguin

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